Letter: Support Cleaner Environment

As a 14-year-old boy growing up in Virginia, I am so happy that President Obama has taken the time to create a plan to clean bodies of water and major rivers of the pollutant mercury. Mercury gets into are food sources and water basins through fish and leftover waste from factories and power plants. I believe that enforcing mercury and air toxics standards is one of the most important things we can do to start protecting the environment from ourselves. In the long run mercury can poison water systems and make people really sick. The entire thing is just such a big hassle once something has been contaminated. I don’t know why some people believe that the benefits outweigh the cost to keep the power plants that produce mercury running. I hope that sometime in the future I can help bring the environment back to its former glory, but for now I can only write letters to you, and be grateful for our leaders who are working to clean up the problem.